The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has been forging partnerships with relevant stakeholders in the country for the accelerated development of the telecom sector in Nigeria. These concerted efforts of the Commission are pointers to its relentless efforts to collaborate with domestic/local partners to achieve tremendous progress on National Policy for promotion of tremendous progress on National Policy for Promotion of Indigenous content in the Nigerian Telecommunications sector.
Specifically, the organization is leaving no stone unturned to ensure the achievement of critical national objectives such as the improvement of local content in the telecom sector, sustenance of the practice of software coding by Nigerians and promotion of indigenous capacity in the billing system of telecommunications in the country.
Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta recently said during a virtual Policy Implementation Assisted Forum on the promotion of indigenous content in the Telecommunications Sector, how the Commission, under his supervision considers stakeholder engagement and consultation as a key strategic regulatory approach, hence the success story of the sector is largely attributed to the wide consultations and engagements employed at every step of the sectors journey. Assuredly, the indigenous content policy in the telecoms sector is beyond verbal commitment.
Nigerians must express profound gratitude to the crop of leaders at NCC for their vision in pushing for accelerated technological development of the country and their readiness to collaborate with other agencies in achieving this.
NCC is vigorously promoting local investment in digital infrastructure and competition in the provision of accessible high speed broadband infrastructure. This will in turn enable the Commission to deliver on the stipulated targets in the Nigerian National Broadband Plan (NNBP) 2020-2025.
Giving more insights into the Commission’s roadmap for implementation of the Policy for the Promotion of Indigenous Content in the Nigerian Telecom Sector.
Prof. Danbatta said the Commission has established the Nigeria Office for Developing the Indigenous Telecoms Sector (NODITS), which is saddled with the responsibility of implementation of the NPPIC as well as the Executive Orders 003 and 005.
No doubt, other deliverables from its partnership with Agencies such as National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA). Nigerian Communications Satellite NIGCOMSAT, among others are the creation of a critical mass of highly skilled Nigerians that would drive the sector as a check against capital flight as well as creation of jobs for the army of unemployed youths in Nigeria.
As a Federal Government agency NCC is mandated to supervise the telecommunications technology sector of Nigeria. The mandate is implemented through the evaluation, registration and monitoring of all telecommunications industries.
In fact, the Federal Government has established a policy on local content within the oil and gas sector. Thus, the National Telecommunications Policy posited that the domestic production of telecommunications hardware and software is desirable for national development. The policy further states that, Government shall encourage domestic production of telecommunications equipment, components and software to meet local and export demands.
In giving legal backing to the above policy direction, the Nigerian Communications Act, 2003 identifies, as one of its primary objectives, the encouragement of local and foreign investments in the Nigerian communications industry. The development of effective local participation at all levels of the value chain becomes a sine-qua-non to the overarching national economic development and market success.
With these concerted efforts NCC is on top of its game to ensure it addresses urgent national concerns such as the issue of local content, development of indigenous software and job creation in the telecommunication sector.
One must therefore commend the zeal and readiness of the Management of NCC to share information and work closely with relevant agencies for the achievement of effective technology transfer for the development of the Nigerian-economy.
Though there is a dearth of software encoders in Nigeria, it is at this juncture necessary stakeholders too must come in and look into the issue for the enhancement of local content in the sector, as NCC cannot perform this magic all alone. The increasing number of Nigerians in the database development segment with a declining interest in software coding is detrimental to a balanced growth in the sector.
Speaking of technology transfer and domestication in the telecom industry, most of the facilities used like software, switches and transmission equipment are imported, however, the Commission has made significant progress in the development of local content. The result of this is the manufacturing of locally produced masts in the country.
The Commission has also established an Internet Exchange Point and linked it to some Universities, in order to keep the internet content local and generate employment for university graduates.
Major stakeholders in the sector have noticed the Commission’s determination in developing a robust compliance monitoring and enforcement framework leveraging existing mechanisms. It is not arguable that promoting the development of indigenous technology in the telecom sector would address numerous critical national needs, if the Commission receives the necessary support to domesticate our technology.
Having said all these, implementation remains one of the clogs in the wheel of Nigeria’s progress; thus it looks like the country has no direction. It is our belief though, that a robust policy initiative such as this will not be left unimplemented. Therefore, we commend the active dialogue around the topic with all stakeholders, which in essence will help them understand how they fit into the bigger picture and what role is expected of them to attain the greater good of our economy.
It is therefore our desire that NCC, a proactive Agency, would cause this much desired paradigm shift and change this order of poetic policy pronouncement creating a midpoint interface between the government and private sector players, where policies can be dissected, digested and effectively implemented.
Olamide Adeniji is a member of the editorial board of TheScript Newspaper
